Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Record rainfall across the Northtowns caught several residents and business owners by complete surprise Thursday evening. This was especially the case when water started backing up and flooding local roadways, even resulting in people's basements becoming flooded with the excess water.
Some neighborhoods like North Buffalo, Kenmore, the Town of Tonawanda and Snyder all saw more than three inches of rain fall in just a couple hours before the storms drifted Southward.
"Talking to the neighbors, some of them are having flooding, some aren't. I go down and I go to check the sump pump to see if it's working. Usually you can hear it in our house, and it's on. It's definitely on. I walk outside to see what the chute is to shoot the water out, and it's constantly going. Like, 'Oh, this thing has entered into a next phase of water evacuation.' I didn't even know sump pumps could do that. So I kind of, for a few minutes, think, 'Alright, good to go.' Go upstairs, go downstairs 10 minutes later, couldn't keep up," said WGR morning show host Jeremy White when discussing the flooding at his home in North Buffalo on Friday.
Some of the worst flooding took place Thursday night on Hertel Avenue in the vicinity of Virgil and Homer avenues. Several business owners and residents saw their buildings flooded, causing a wide amount of damage in the span of just a couple of hours.
"Standing on my porch last night, just watching it all go down, and there were cars floating down the street. It was crazy," said Hertel Avenue resident Haithum in an interview with WBEN. "I mean, it was like you were on a boat. Every time a car went by, it sent a wake towards the house. It was nuts."
Haithum says several items at his residence were destroyed by around 4.5 feet of rain and sewer water making its way to his basement. And there's still quite a bit of material he has to go through to determine what could be salvaged.
"Putting your storage up on pallets wasn't going to stop that. There was just too much water, and there's nothing you can do to prepare for that," Haithum added.
Darla Jones, owner of Second Nature Barbershop and Salon just a few doors down, says she had gone home for the night, not expecting to return the next morning to damage from the flooding water.
"I left my salon around 6:30 p.m., so maybe about a half an hour before it started, and I didn't see the damage until 7 a.m. this morning," Jones said with WBEN. "I checked the cameras, and I just seen it. The street was completely flooded, and then I seen my neighbor's video on social media showing how their restaurant was flooded, so I instantly knew that my shop was destroyed too."
Jones says the extent of the damage inside her salon was enough to cancel her appointments for the day.
"I've been crying all morning. My floors are damaged. The carpet is damaged. We're having electrical problems at this point now, and just have to go in and figure out everything else that's wrong with it," she said. "With having a barber shop and a salon, we have a lot of electrical tools and such. So just praying that all of those things aren't destroyed either."
Despite not having flood insurance, like many fellow business owners along that stretch of Hertel Avenue, Jones is hopeful there is something that can be done to provide relief with her cleanup efforts.
She's also hopeful the city can address the sewer main that backed up just in front of her business Thursday night, resulting in the majority of the problems for her and others along Hertel Avenue.
Local plumber Frank DiMaria of Frank's Basement Systems says often when city main systems become overwhelmed, there's nothing much that can prevent your house of business from potentially being affected by flooding.
However, he says it's important to stay on top of maintenance with your sump pump at home to better prevent the chance of it failing, resulting in water making its way into your basement.
"Many people, including my own customers, had situations last night, and three-quarters of them could have already been prevented if there was maintenance done," said DiMaria with WBEN. "I promise you that if there was maintenance done - the proper check valves were in, the proper plugs were in, the proper sump pumps were in, the proper backups were in, the proper sizing was in - maybe others will disagree, but, at least, three-quarters of our calls could have been prevented."
DiMaria adds it never hurts to be prepared for the possibility of flooding, which is why the maintenance is so key.
"Every couple years, they say it's the '100-year rainfall'. Well, let me tell you something, since I've been in Buffalo over the course of 40 years, we've had about 25 100[-year] rainfalls. So just be prepared," he said. "If you don't know what to do, call a professional that knows what they're doing and gets your information. Go to our website and just check it out. I mean, there's right ways of doing things and wrong ways, and if you do it the right way, you shouldn't have a problem."
